THE STORY OF A LITTLE BOY,
TWO DOGS AND A RESTAURANT NAME!
It all started back in 1963 in a classroom at Lizzie Horn Elementary School. Arithmetic was relentless. Freckled face, eight year old boy gazed up at the Big Blue above the giant black board. The last recess was just over, and the longest hour of the day was just beginning.
As the little boy squirmed in his desk, sweat was pouring down his face. He's just torn the other knee out of his badly worn blue jeans playing King King Kalako. He began to gaze up at the clock again as he rubbed the grass off his knees.
Suddenly, a voice rang out, warning him to straighten up and pay attention! He tried but he just couldn't. All he could think about was Jake and Rip, his two best friends. Both were bird dogs, Jake being a Setter, and Rip, a Pointer. He drifted off to sleep, daydreaming about dogs, ducks, deer and all the good things little boys dream about. As he dozed, his head was rocking back and forth. Finally, that last 3:15 bell rang out and a smile broke across his face. He quickly grabbed his dirty shirt off the back of his desk and wrapped his books up in it. He ran down the long school hall.
Finally outside that terrible place, he looked down rows of bicycles and pedaled as hard as he could, headed for home! As he flew down that last street, weaving in and out of traffic and passing school buses like they were standing still, he could hear two faint barks as he approached home. They got louder and louder. It was Jake & Rip!! They were just as anxious to get the day started as he was. As the little boy ran through the backyard at home, he yelled out, "H-e-r-e Jake, h-e-r-e Rip, h-e-r-e-b-o-y!" They took each other down rolling through the grass without a worry in the world, except whether they were going to go bird hunting with the BB gun, play football, ride bikes or maybe play in the ditch.
The year is now 1993, some 30 years later. That freckled faced little boy has partially grown up, but not completely. Not much has changed about his driving, but he traded his bicycles for Ford pick-ups and rebuilding a restaurant, Ragtime, from a terrible fire. He decided to build another restaurant totally different from Ragtime. Something that was more rustic and outdoorsy. He planned on using some burned and damaged equipment, antiques and other things he could salvage in this new restaurant which had no name. He'd had no trouble naming Ragtime. One night while flipping through TV guide, he saw, in bold print, the movie Ragtime, and he knew that was the name. But this one was a lot harder.
He had thought of names like "Go West" and "The Highlanders", etc. It was around the middle of the afternoon, and he was flying down the highway in his Ford pick-up, weaving in and out of traffic. As he was daydreaming, he flew up behind an old yellow school bus. He couldn't seem to get around. Impatiently, he glanced down at the truck clock and saw it was 3:15. A smile broke across his face, and he could hear the 3:15 bell and those two barks. At that moment, he knew what the name of his restaurant would be… Jake & Rip's!
The moral of this true story about how this restaurant got its name, Jake & Rip's, is when you slow down just a little and look back at your past, you'll find that some times are better than others, but they were all good times, even the school part!
**BUT MOST OF ALL, DOGS WILL BE MAN'S BEST FRIEND,
AND HOPEFULLY WITH CUSTOMER'S LIKE YOU,
JAKE & RIP'S WILL LIVE ON FOREVER!**
